It was released as the first single from their 1989 album The Seeds of Love, and was a worldwide hit, reaching the top five in the UK, Canada (where it was #1), Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the US where it peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 (kept out from the top spot by Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much"), while topping the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The single also reached the Top 20 in numerous other countries.
Due to reaching #1 on the US Cash Box chart, this was technically the band's third US pop chart-topper (although it did not top the Billboard chart).

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The song incorporates a number of musical styles and recording techniques, with a number of reviewers considering it a pastiche of The Beatles, produced in a style reminiscent of their late 1960s output.[1] It was written in June 1987, during the week of the UK General Election in which Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party won a third consecutive term in office. The election prompted Roland Orzabal, who comes from a working-class background, to take an interest in politics and socialism. At the time of its release, he considered this to be the most overtly political song that Tears For Fears had ever recorded. The lyrics refer to Thatcher's election win with "Politician granny with your high ideals, have you no idea how the majority feels?"

The song's title was inspired by a radio programme that Orzabal had heard at the time about a man who was putting together a collection of traditional English folk songs. One of the more obscure songs was called "The Seeds of Love" which he had learned about from a gardener called Mr. England (reflected in the lyric "Mr. England sowing the seeds of love").[2]

"Sowing the Seeds of Love" was the first song ever played on Atlantic 252, an Irish radio station broadcasting across most of the UK, which went live at 7am on 1 September 1989.[3]

The single was used in the soundtrack of British movie Greenfingers (2001).[4]